Time to review newspaper supply arrangements
With newsagents selling their newspaper home delivery businesses in unprecedented numbers, publishers and other stakeholders ought to review how they view and engage with the retail newsagent.
A common situation I see is that when a newsagent sells their home delivery round to concentrate on retail, they drop to being a second class citizen in the eyes of the publishers. This does not happen every time but I have seen it enough to record it as a problem. (I note that this has not been my experience – I am commenting of what others have told me.)
I’d like to see the retail newsagent have a robust direct publisher relationship. This is essential is maximum sales are to be achieved. Too often I have seen inadequate support to the retail newsagent for promotions such as DVDs, posters and the like. A direct relationship could avoid this and actually help the newsagent achieve higher sales.
Publishers invest heavily in subsidising home delivery subscriptions. Equal effort spent on the retail network could reap excellent sales growth. Just because I sold my home delivery round a year ago does not mean I care less about newspapers. In fact, the contrary is true – I see the importance of newspapers from a pure retail perspective. This focus is good for the publishers – if they wish to engage more deeply with retail only newsagents.
Even though our range is small, these foreign Christmas cards sell very well.
The Standard free newspaper in Hong Kong is different to the free daily newspapers I have seen elsewhere. A free newspaper like this would impact sales of paid-for newspapers is released in Australia. It has everything from serious news – a page one story on the exchange rate – through to good sports coverage – a back page story about the loss suffered by Shane Warne’s All Stars here yesterday to Sri Lanka in the Hong Kong Sixes.
While the folks at The Age have spared their masthead, they have allowed the National Australia Bank to pay to cover park of the photo on the front page of the Domain section of today’s newspaper.
We heard this week that newsXpress Forest Hill is ranked #7 nationally and #2 in Victoria for sales of Lovatts titles. The Lovatts brand dominates the crossword and puzzle space and we have made a concerted effort around this category for several years. That effort is paid off in these rankings – both are way above our overall state and national magazine sales rankings. I’d put our success down to obsession with the catgeory and smart use of technology – our in-store actions are data driven.
This drinks fridge is in the middle of a wall of stationery in the newsagency we purchase two weeks ago.
While I was involved in a magazine relay this morning I saw first-hand the frustration of a customer over triple packs. Which one am I supposed to buy – they all look the same. She was right, three versions of this title, all current. How am I supposed to find which one I want if they are sealed up? At least she didn’t rip open the pack like others had with other double and triple packs. I don’t know how they expect to sell these magazines, our customer said as she walked out frustrated.
Basic as it is, here how we promote selected Darrell Lea lines at our busiest lottery counter. We refresh this small display daily and change the products on offer several times a week.